]]>http://rssnews.co/2018/05/24/alexa-who-is-god-church-of-england-turns-smart-device-into-faith-hub/feed/015731Why is there a row about Galileo?http://rssnews.co/2018/05/24/why-is-there-a-row-about-galileo/
http://rssnews.co/2018/05/24/why-is-there-a-row-about-galileo/#respondThu, 24 May 2018 18:05:45 +0000https://rssnews.co/2018/05/24/why-is-there-a-row-about-galileo/

Britain may be denied full access to the EU’s Galileo satellite navigation system on security grounds after Brexit.

]]>http://rssnews.co/2018/05/24/woman-fights-off-grizzly-bear-then-walks-to-safety/feed/015726Vote to End Ireland’s Pro-Life Amendment May Now Be Too Close to Callhttp://rssnews.co/2018/05/24/vote-to-end-irelands-pro-life-amendment-may-now-be-too-close-to-call/
http://rssnews.co/2018/05/24/vote-to-end-irelands-pro-life-amendment-may-now-be-too-close-to-call/#respondThu, 24 May 2018 15:07:26 +0000https://rssnews.co/2018/05/24/vote-to-end-irelands-pro-life-amendment-may-now-be-too-close-to-call/

DUBLIN – Irish voters will decide Friday whether to repeal the nation’s pro-life amendment to its constitution. And experts say the race has tightened considerably.

It’s an issue that’s being debated in homes, pubs and on street corners across Ireland, sometimes dividing friends and family.

“My son’s godmother and I actually had a huge falling out. We haven’t spoken a year,” said one woman, “because she’s a nurse and she is voting ‘yes’ and I’m voting ‘no’ and I think literally… it has actually divided us. We are not speaking at all.”

Polling still shows the repeal, or ‘yes’ side, with the lead. But some polls show it shrinking, and because there are so many undecided voters – almost a quarter of those surveyed – some experts think the race has become too close to call.

A repeal would allow for abortion up to 12 weeks, but pro-lifers here fear it would quickly turn into abortion on demand, at any time.

The repeal side claims it is about the health and safety of women, but Ireland’s 8th Amendment already protects the life of a woman during pregnancy.

Those who want the amendment repealed also say women do not have full rights if they do not have the right to abortion.

A major controversy has been a ban on foreign social media advertising by Facebook and Google, which seems aimed at stopping the pro-life side.

“I think it is intended to hurt our campaign,” said John McGuirk of the pro-life ‘Save the 8th’ group. “I think Google, having watched the results of the American presidential election and the British referendum on the European Union, are a little bit concerned that if the ‘no’ vote wins, that they would have gotten the blame. So, they decided to shut down all advertising.”

Official results are not expected until Saturday, but exit polling may show the results Friday.

]]>http://rssnews.co/2018/05/24/vote-to-end-irelands-pro-life-amendment-may-now-be-too-close-to-call/feed/015724Yemen war: Wedding party that turned into a 'bloodbath'http://rssnews.co/2018/05/24/yemen-war-wedding-party-that-turned-into-a-bloodbath/
http://rssnews.co/2018/05/24/yemen-war-wedding-party-that-turned-into-a-bloodbath/#respondThu, 24 May 2018 15:04:39 +0000https://rssnews.co/2018/05/24/yemen-war-wedding-party-that-turned-into-a-bloodbath/

Sameeh was at the wedding in April when his father Ali was killed by a Saudi airstrike in rural Yemen.

Last autumn in Alabama, Mr Trump called on protesting players to be fired.

“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, out, he’s fired. He’s fired,'” Mr Trump said at the time.

“That’s a total disrespect of our heritage. That’s a total disrespect of everything that we stand for.”

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Media captionMr Trump attacked protesting players at a rally in Alabama last autumn

Under the new league policy, teams can be fined an undetermined sum if players protest on the field.

Players are permitted to stay in the locker room as the anthem is performed. They previously were required to be present on the field.

Forbes lock-out

Elsewhere, several of the larger tech firms have taken steps to overhaul their privacy measures.

Yahoo has rolled out new consent forms that allow users to pick which third-parties they want to allow the service to share data about them, in order to serve personalised ads “and understand your interactions”.

Image copyrightYahoo

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Yahoo is allowing users to specify which third-parties should be able to send them personalised ads

Some users who failed to set their preferences before midnight on 23 May will have found that third-party software – including their smartphone’s native email app – will have stopped logging into the service until this was done and their password re-entered.

Apple’s privacy management tools also went live earlier this week, as did Spotify’s.

Some users have, however, been surprised by the measures taken by the Forbes news site.

If users opt out of accepting “functional cookies” within its new privacy settings, they are blocked from viewing any content on its site until they change their minds.

Image copyrightForbes

Image caption
Forbes users are presented with this notice if they opt out of receiving cookies within its new settings

Meanwhile, many internet users are receiving a last flurry of emails asking them to opt into marketing communications.

Organisations do not need to obtain fresh consent if their customers opted in to such adverts in the past or they can cite other “legitimate interests” for writing to them in the future.

But if the sole basis for emailing them would be that they had not unticked a box in the past, then they should be removed from their contact lists.

Image caption
The Champions League final between Liverpool and Real Madrid takes place in Kiev on Saturday

Preparations for a cyber-attack on Ukraine have been thwarted by the FBI.

It seized a website that was helping communicate with home routers infected with malware that would carry out the digital bombardment.

More than 500,000 routers in 54 countries had been infected by the “dangerous” malware and the FBI is now trying to clean up infected machines.

The Kremlin has denied an allegation by Ukraine that Russia was planning a cyber-attack on the country.

Kill command

A key step in thwarting the attack came on 23 May when a US court ordered website registrar Verisign to hand over control of the ToKnowAll.com domain to the FBI.

Infected machines regularly contacted that domain to update the malware with which they were infected.

By taking control of the domain, the FBI will be able to log the location of infected machines and co-ordinate efforts to clean them up.

A state-sponsored group known as Sofacy/Fancy Bear has been identified as both developing the malware and preparing the attack.

“This operation is the first step in the disruption of a botnet that provides the Sofacy actors with an array of capabilities that could be used for a variety of malicious purposes,” said John Demers, assistant attorney general for National Security, in a statement.

Details of the preparation were shared by Cisco’s Talos security team which said it had been monitoring the “advanced, state-sponsored” attack for months. In a blog it said malware, which it dubbed VPNFilter, used several sophisticated methods to compromise routers.

In particular, it said, the malicious software had been coded to survive even when infected devices were turned off and on. In the past, infected devices have only needed a reboot to remove the malicious code.

Cisco added that the malware included a “kill” command that would render devices unusable if it were used.

In all, 14 models of home routers made by Linksys, Mikrotik, Negear and Qnap were targeted by the malware. Cisco said it had seen widespread scans seeking out routers with known vulnerabilities that the malware could exploit.

Cleaning out the infection involves returning devices to their initial factory settings. Users are also being urged to update the firmware on their router to remove vulnerabilities exploited by the malware.

Cisco said it went public with the information it had gathered because earlier this month it saw a sudden spike in scanning and a particular focus on home routers in Ukraine. The VPNFilter code shares some similarities with the Black Energy malware used in attacks on Ukraine’s power grid.

The target of the expected attack is not clear but Reuters suggested the network of infected machines could be used to cause disruption on Saturday when the Champions League final is played in Kiev.